


Bedtime stories

by lexlee20



Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: Gen, Hatoful birdfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-12
Updated: 2012-07-12
Packaged: 2017-11-09 20:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexlee20/pseuds/lexlee20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BBL/guidebook spoilers. Written pre-HoliStar.</p><p> <i>In his dreams, he is still Hitori.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedtime stories

In his dreams, he is still Hitori.

In his dreams, he wakes besides somebirdie he has loved, or at least somebirdie who tried to love him.

Sometimes it is his birth family, no more than a vague tactile memory of the entire quail covey companionably clustered beneath the summer trees. In the waking world, he does not know what happened to them or where they are. One night, he dozed off as usual in the haphazard friendly heap. The next morning, he was dazed and bandaged, already in the orphanage. They waited to see if some of his broodmates might be brought in too, but none of them ever were.

Sometimes it is Nageki, a shy new fledging huddling close for warmth as the first chills of autumn set in. Heartful House almost never had enough money for firewood— and even if they did, Nageki needed to sleep in a room with an open window, or the smoke would make his coughing even worse.

Sometimes it is Kazuaki, his university lab partner who caught him stealing cyanide from the chemistry supply room the winter after Nageki died. The white quail followed Hitori back to his apartment and stayed all night, trying to talk him out of suicide. Hitori made tea for them and they sipped it together. The sweet mango flavoring masked the taste of the cyanide that Hitori had already stolen earlier. Hitori woke slumped over the kitchen table the next morning. Kazuaki did not.

Sometimes it is no one at all. In that dream, Hitori cannot see anyone because he has no face left to see it with. After he switched their identification papers, he dropped Kazuaki’s body through the river ice, having tied heavy stones to the white quail’s legs before firing a bullet up through the base of the dead beak. By the time the body was found in spring thaw, the telltale white feathers had detached and floated away long ago.

The body of this last “Hitori” is somewhere in cold storage, in a small box by itself. It is fitting that no one is beside him now. There is no one left who could love him or be loved. Hitori knows this because Nageki’s ghost has told him so.

When he wakes in real life, Nageki’s ghost is still beside him. But it does not love him. When he looks into the mirror, Kazuaki’s ghost looks back at him. He cannot love it back.

Sometimes, he does not know which is worse: dreaming and knowing that he is dreaming, or being awake and knowing that too.

**Author's Note:**

> ...and after writing this, I found some possible "Holiday Star" leaks that may contradict the original Kazuaki's background. My headcanon continues to be burnt into yakitori; soon only small pieces of liver may remain.


End file.
